Bob Stanneveld - Professional Profile

Summary

Bob is a young Information Technology student with too much ambition. He's been programming since high school and he's been known to be constantly trying to exploit his knowledge so that he can prove that he also knows something. He really wants to stop programming and become a lead systems architect in multinational or have his own succesfull company.

Because of his ambition, he starts on project after another, but never finishes one because he doesn't find it interesting enough after the design phase.

He's also interested in going on holidays to sunny places, playing poker and swimming. He also likes to smoke a good cigar and drink good whiskey once in a while.

Right now, Bob is working on a large project just by himself, which he really intends to finisch. Not because he never finisched a personal project, but because he needs to have dicipline. He also wants to write a couple of articles based on components of the project.

Reputation

Privileges

Members need to achieve at least one of the given member levels in the given reputation
categories in order to perform a given action. For example, to store personal files in your
account area you will need to achieve Platinum level in either the Author or Authority category.
The "If Owner" column means that owners of an item automatically have the privilege. The
member types column lists member types who gain the privilege regardless of their reputation
level.

A little history
It has been quite a while that I've been active on this bright part of the internet. To tell you the truth, I've been very busy with my graduation project. I know, it's no excuse to stay away from my favorite community, but unfortunately (maybe fortunate for some of you ) it did happen...

I've been busy with developing a project administration system. I didn't write any code yet, since it turned out to be much more complicated than expected. I and my colleague have written the first functional design. This may seem little sine we were working on it for 5,5 months, but it's not all we've been doing. The most interesting part is the research that we've been doing.

The research was about a new software development methodology called Effective and Efficient Enterprise Systems Development (3ESD). There is English version of the methodology available at this time. The goal of this research was to test 3ESD and add more detail in the sense of workflow, team organization, guidelines, and etcetera. We have achieved this goal.

3ESD
Traditional methodologies like SDM, DSDM, RUP, etc. have certain strengths and weaknesses. These weaknesses originate in their strengths and vice versa. This seems very awkward, but if you look at the spectrum, you see why. Traditional (waterfall-like) methodologies have their strength in the different layers of expertise: functional design, technical design, and development. The weakness in the design of the methodology is that the product has to be developed in one iteration. As we all know, no functional design, technical design, or whatever can be written in one pass.
The modern, also referred to as agile methods, or RAD, focus on iterative development and customer involvement. The weakness here is that often, no sound functional design or technical design is made, and ad-hoc features / changes are not traceable and become a nightmare. Result is that testing the software in a whole becomes almost impossible.

3ESD combines the traditional and agile aspects into one methodology. Focusing on iterative development, while maintaining a sound functional- and technical design, results in testable and maintainable software. One of the key strengths is that - unlike traditional methods - the functional design doesn't need approval of the constituent. This is not necessary since the document isn't read in the first place, and even when it is read, it is not understood by anyone other than the author. A higher level of abstraction is needed: the business needs. The constituent and analysts write down the business needs and the development team makes sure that these are met.

To the future: the career highway
Since 3ESD isn't mature at all I want to do more research on this subject. I hope to do this at the company where I'm currently rounding off my graduation project.

When I get my contract, I'll continue to help 3ESD become a more mature methodology. I'll also make my work available in English so a broad community can enjoy it. This will be my first mile on the career highway…

Behind every great black man...
... is the police. - Conspiracy brother

Nope, I never wrote it. I even stayed away from the forums... I guess programming isn't what I love doing after all..

The company which employed me is interested in this new methodology and allows me to do more research one day per week. It's still in an early phase and it will take a while before it will go public. In the contrary to previous projects, this is one that I don't have to do alone. I have confidence that this one will see the light of day

How are you these days?

Behind every great black man...
... is the police. - Conspiracy brother

Sounds pretty good. Not up to too much these days, switched jobs and moved earlier this year. For many reasons such as tired of being the architect without the title and not getting the recogniition I should have. Also, in all that just bored with basically working on nothing new.

Many reasons for switching jobs. I couldn't bear working when the fun isn't there. Is your new job in the same industry or did you made some drastic career changes? It isn't uncommon these days that the IT professional becomes a musician, painter, etc.

Behind every great black man...
... is the police. - Conspiracy brother

I somewhat did change industries, I no longer work on packaged software. Previously I worked on MetaFrame (Basically, a more featureful and optimized version of Remote Desktop using a different protocol. Remote Desktop is actually sitting on top of the technology that was developed by the company but sold to Microsoft).

Now I work for a big processor company. What I do there I cannot discuss.

It has been four weeks since my last BLOG entry here. I've got no excuse this time, but some interesting things have happened. One of these things is that I'm now trying to buy a monastery with a few other families just outside the city where I currently live. An other thing is that I had a car accident a few days ago.

A monastery you say? Yes!
I found that the small houses in the city and the small gardens are just too small for me for too high a price. I prefer a nice house with a large garden (70.000 m2). Since I don't have enough money to buy it all by myself, I contacted my uncle who is also interested. Together with his neighbor and one of my friends, we try to buy the whole thing. I really hope that this project succeeds.

Last Wednesday, my mother and me were driving back from salsa class at night. It was at night and the roads were empty. We were driving on the highway about 100 km/h. It was 22:45 when I woke up in the hospital. I lost approximately one hour of memories. I can't remember a thing! Somehow somebody was driving with an insane speed (approx.: 180 - 200 km/h). He didn't see my mother’s car and he hit us in the back. Both the cars are now a total loss and all the people were hospitalized.
My side of the car was totally wrecked and I was extremely lucky that I survived the crash. Strangely enough I only got a few bruises. My mother also has almost nothing. The other driver has his leg broken on more than one place and was on the IC for a few days. I was shocked when I heard that he was just 21.

Take care everyone and until next time!

Behind every great black man...
... is the police. - Conspiracy brother

My side of the car was totally wrecked and I was extremely lucky that I survived the crash. Strangely enough I only got a few bruises. My mother also has almost nothing. The other driver has his leg broken on more than one place and was on the IC for a few days. I was shocked when I heard that he was just 21.

Hai..God Bless you!!! , you got a new life I believe!

"Opinions are neither right nor wrong. I cannot change your opinion. I can, however, change what influences your opinion." - David Crow

I noticed today that I didn't write a blog entry for a few weeks now. Not that something spectacular happened except for yesterday. I've been busy with some projects here and there...

Yesterday I attended an xPerienceDay which was held by CapGemini. During this day young professionals guided a small group of other people at the start of their career. During this day we got to know the company on the inside.

I arrived at the main office around 9 o' clock. I was one of the first and I immediatly got the assignmemt of making a buisiness card. I had to show my creativity. I'm not that creative drawing my self portret.

At 10 o' clock, the event started. We went to a congress hall were the CTO Ron Tolido held a presentation about the company policy and what he does during his average month of work.

After the lunch we got a tour around the main office complex. We got the chance to ask 4 employees all the questions we want. I used this oppertunity to ask how Cap Gemini can help with an international career. I turned out that it is really easy to work abroad. They will even help people who want to migrate to another country. The catch is that you cannot leave the company, but you'll have to get a job with an office in another country. This is not too bad I guess.
One other thing I noticed during these interviews was that the company is really dynamic. Each year or so, a re-organisation takes place. This is necessary to adapt to the dynamic market, not to fire employees. During this proccess, the oppertunity rises that one can make promotion. One of the company policies is: be the master of your own destiny. I must say that that the company supports this really well.

During the last part of the day, a little contest took place. All 4 groups had to design a flag for Cap Gemini. The group with the best design / story got a little present. My group took the logo and created a world where all people (companies, clients and employees) are all equal and work together to get a solotion. Unfortunatly we didn't win. We came in second. The first place went to the most awfull flag: a pizza. Their story was by far the best. The short version:
"Cap provides the basics: bottom, tomatoes and cheese. The clients specify what they want, the ingredients. Alone these ingredients do not taste delicious, but together they make a very delicious pizza!"

Behind every great black man...
... is the police. - Conspiracy brother

It's been a while since I've posted a message here. I must say that I didn't do much except finishing the last tasks on my internship and starting with college.

Speaking of college, It's my graduation year! . For the next semester until december I'll be very busy with projects, but after that, I can start my graduation project. I hope that I can do this project with a few other students instead of my own. It would be more interesting and challenging than doing it on my own. Maybe I'll write some sort of journal how this develops.
I'm still looking for some project ideas. A project must be something interesting from a economical point of view. You can think about reducing development cost / effort and related stuff. If you have an idea, please let me know!

Anyway, did you all came back from holliday, or did your college start again this month?

Behind every great black man...
... is the police. - Conspiracy brother

If you want to write an application that would help reduce development costs you will first need to narrow your scope. The development process is quite large and there is room for a cost saving utilty at most any time during the process (There may be tools that can be used throughout, however, but these are generally much more comprehensive tools but if you have the time this can also be the scope!).

After you choose the direction you want to focus on I would then find out what tools currently exist. I would find news groups, message boards and find out what problems developers face that you believe may reduce costs if they had a simpler solution. You could even start your own poll. Once you find out what their problems are, see what tools they use and if there are already existing tools. If there are find out why they don't meed the requirements. You may then take these requirements into a new tool or you could find out if existing tools have integration APIs that would allow you to extend them.

Development Phase: Implementation
Sample Tools: Visual C++ IDE, Visual Slick Editor
Sample Complaint: Visual C++ IDE locks up constantly and I spend a lot of time waiting for information tags to show up.

Development Phase: Unit Testing
Sample Tools: VM Ware
Sample Complaint: VMWare doesn't support my USB mouse. I have a hard time managing multiple VMs and it takes me hours to setup the test.

Development Phase: Testing
Sample Tools: Mercury Loadrunner, Scripts, UI Automation, Bug Tracking Software
Sample Complaint: The UI automation tester constaintly misses UI and the test stops half way through. A machine runs out of memory but before I come back to check on it it's already hosed and I can't get any useful information to fix it so I need to take another 5 days to rerun the test. Bugtracking is manual process and our tools are very slow.

It's been a while since I've seen a post from you! Was it a long holliday ?

Toby Opferman wrote:What happened to your article?

I've the design completed, but I didn't find enough time to implement enough for the design to reach a mature state. Unfortunatly I had to spend most of my time completing my internship which was a few weeks (4 - 6) overdue. I had little time left of my remaining holliday which I wanted to spend with my girlfriend.

The scope of my graduation project is too large indeed. At school I have to do a research project and I try to narrow the field down. Maybe I can even get a few companies to work with me.

Thanks for the information. It will be helpfull for at least on of my projects this year.

Behind every great black man...
... is the police. - Conspiracy brother

I'm working from home since two weeks now. I cannot believe how relaxing this is! I can get up 2 hours more late and I can quit 1 hour more early

I can also work with my own computer, multiple monitors and last but not least, my own OS configuration! I really started to miss that at the company PC.
Working from home has also some disadvantages for me. Nobody will know if I didn't work one day too few per week . It's good that I have a girlfriend who kicks me out of the bed every morning. I still have to make my own breakfast and coffee though.

Anybody else here working at home too?

Behind every great black man...
... is the police. - Conspiracy brother

I had an internship many years ago that I worked from home with the company computer (Reflections X is quite slow over a modem!). I do work from home time to time and I usually VPN in anyway and connect to my desktop even now. I haven't kept up with hardware much at home though so I've still got an old 17" CRT (of course I do have my laptop and a company laptop I use as well).

At work though I have 3 flat screens on my desk and 2 P4 and 1 P4/w 64. And that's just this office, in the other office I have 1-2 Flat screens I use and 3 P4/64. So, working from home I don't nesscarily have the best equipment

I don't think that my boss cares much now if I work 3 or 5 days a week, since my internship days are over. All that I'm doing now is completing my project, since I really don't like half finished projects..

I've read some messages from people complaining about not working alone in a office with 4 walls and a door. I also read that some people are happy with just that. You have 2 offices! You really must be a happy developer!

Behind every great black man...
... is the police. - Conspiracy brother